Professor Carol Rittner is an academic, an activist, a liaison to the United Nations, an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, and a nun. Rittner, a Distinguished Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, has dedicated her life to her Christian faith and to understanding the circumstances that allowed the Holocaust to occur. She has authored a number of books that explore the Holocaust, its causes and how people responded to the tragedy. She has also examined the relationship between the Holocaust and the Christian world, and how religion played a part in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Her film, The Courage to Care, was nominated for a 1986 Academy Award in the Short Documentary category.

In 2011, Rittner marked her 50th year as a Catholic nun with the Religious Sisters of Mercy. Rittner said she joined the Sisters of Mercy because she wanted to contribute to something bigger than herself and aligned with the church’s principals of serving others, serving unselfishly, and trying to make this a better world. To this end, Rittner is an active member of a variety of educational organisations, community groups and trusts which dedicate themselves to the prevention of genocide.

Aside from her work at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, Rittner also works with the Holywell Trust, the Beth Shalom Holocaust Memorial Centre, the Aegis Institute and Mercy Global Concern. Rittner has lectured in areas around the world, from her home in the US to places such as Australia, South Africa, Israel, Ireland and Cambodia.